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A new page with this title has just been created by User:172.203.147.132 . I'm not sure whether its separate existence is valuable. Contributers here may have their own thoughts. Aryan language (small L) already redirects to Indo-European languages. Perhaps that should become a disambiguation page. Paul B 09:39, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Dardic and Nuristani are different languages, I do not know about Nuristani languages but Dardic languages were firstly considered as distinct branch of indo-iranian family but now because of the new research it is believed that Dardic languages are abberant form of Indo-aryan or indic group, the speciality of Dardic languages is that dardic languages still posess the archaic vocabulary of vedic sanskrit which shows that dardic languages are descended directly from proto-vedic sanskrit thus different in this case from modern indic languages which are descended from the middle prakrit form of sanskrit. Nuristiani languages , however are still considered a distinct branch of indo-iranin though they are also more drifted towards indo-aryan rather than iranian brach.

The article on Grammatical gender says that most Indo-European languages have grammatical gender, but it has just occurred to me that some Iranian languages do not. Is this a widespread trait in the Indo-Iranian branch? FilipeS 16:24, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

All indo-aryan dialects/languages have two genders masculine and feminine and the verbs,adjectives have separate declensions for singular and plural cases. In ancient times there were three genders in indo-aryan proper which were masculine,feminine and neutral. neutral case has been given up in modern indo-aryan dialects.(Usman Pakistan)

Thanks for replying, but what about Persian?... FilipeS 01:14, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Persian does not have grammatical gender. According to this article, the Sorani dialect of Kurdish doesn't have grammatical gender, while Kurmanji Kurdish does. –jonsafari 22:14, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

While both Modern English and Modern Persian do not have grammatical gender, it should be noted that both Old English and Old Persian DID have grammatical gender. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.68.148.157 (talk) 13:20, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

I think hilighting that a minority group exists in a country which speaks an Indo-Iranian language is completely unnecessary. Since that would cover nearly every country in the world. But someone just wanted to highlight United States? I suggest someone just stick with "official language". 66.171.76.138 21:39, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Grouping Iranian and Indic together is based on solid grounds. The affiliation between Iranian and Indic is not a solid one. It is as strong as each are with Slavic and Baltic. (All are Satem languages, and honestly Baltic shows strong resemblance with Sanskrit). The only fact which led the linguist to construct the Indo-Iranian (hypo)thesis was the fact that vestan and Sanskrit were similar, but that was not surprising because we did not have as ancient languages in either Baltic or Slavic. Moreover It is funny to speak of Indo-Aryan for Indic, when one avoids the usage of Aryan (proper) for Iranian --Babakexorramdin (talk) 14:04, 11 February 2008 (UTC)--Babakexorramdin (talk) 22:31, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

While the affiliation between Iranian and Indic is not 100% rock solid, it's not the duty of Wikipedia to conduct original research. It's the duty of WP to represent reliable sources, and there's an abundance of reliable sources indicating a stronger affiliation between Iranian and Indic, than between either of these and other IE families. Having said that, if you have reliable sources that shed light on the looseness of the affiliation between Iranian and Indic, then feel free to add such content to this article, always citing your reliable sources. –jonsafari (talk) 04:32, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

The common origin of Avestan and Sanskrit is undeniable. Post-Anquetil linguists consistently used and continue to use both Sanskrit and later Persian dialects to decipher Avestan texts (the few that exist). 76.181.237.245 (talk) 13:25, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Beckwith, though admittedly not a linguist, brings up the point in Empires of the Silk Road (2009) that Avestan seems so close to Sanskrit that one could classify Avestan as an Indo-Aryan language. He mentions that this was the opinion of several scholars in the early days of Indo-Aryan philology. Avestan doesn't appear to be the direct ancestor of any other attested Iranian language, so I fail to see why it is classified as Iranian. I would guess (and maybe this is fact) that comparisons between Sanskrit and Old Persian form the basis for Indo-Iranian. Bear with me, I am not a linguist either, but I was hoping the discussion section here could inform me whether or not the seemingly arbitrary classification of Avestan questions the 'solidity' of Indo-Iranian as a grouping. Do you see the problem here? Imagine if we had ancient texts of an extinct, hypothetical language that was for a fact (though we don't know this) descended from proto-Baltic. However, it is so ancient that its classification is not obvious, and we arbitrarily classify it as a Slavic language. We then note the closeness of it to proto-Baltic and, by circular reasoning, point to it as evidence for Balto-Slavic as a monophyletic group.

That's an old idea, dating back to Oswald Spengler in the early 20th century. Nonetheless, Avestan is clearly Iranian: in addition to lacking Indic innovations, it shares innovations with the Iranian languages. Compare in particular Old Persian, a West Iranian language that is similarly archaic as the East Iranian language Avestan. Iranian and Indic really are very, very close – like Baltic and Slavic! David Marjanović (talk) 18:44, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Hello, in my opinion is the term "Iranian" absolutely false, it goes to Middle Iranian "Êran" and was in Old Iranian "ârîânam", so the pure and right word is "Arian" in English transcribed.

We must to call this language-group "Indo-Arianian", and the iranic language group to "Arianian languages". --Meyman (talk) 19:22, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Hey Meymann, updated the lemma. However, the termin Indo-Iranian is the one used in the field of linguistics today. No need to change that. Lazard employed the term irano-aryan in analogy to indo-aryan. The term is fine but still needs to catch on. To move back and call the indo-aryan family plain aryan doesn't solve any of the issues associated with the renaming persia to iran (which is what ultimately caused the problems today). linguist distinguished persian as a language of persia from iranian languages as in language families. -- Chartinael (talk) 21:13, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

The problem was first started when Europeans called "Iranshahr" Persia. You know, I hate Europeans, they think they are the center of universe. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.183.124.223 (talk) 19:44, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

It's been two years and this racist comment is still here. Why? If someone had said something like "I hate Asians" it would have been removed pretty quickly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.166.150.53 (talk) 09:18, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

The oldest attested Indo-Iranian languages are Vedic Sanskrit (ancient Indian), Avestan and Old Persian (two ancient Iranian
languages). But there are written instances of a fourth language in Northern Mesopotamia which is considered to be Indo-Aryan.
They are attested in documents from the ancient empire of Mitanni and the Hittites of Anatolia.

Well, we still don't know exactly what it means ... We are certain Mitanni has Indo-Aryan vocabulary attested. As there are insufficient sources it stays at that until new evidence arises. We are certain that the vocabulary is indo-aryan and not irano-aryan because of the horse-vocabulary. So, yes possibly is superstratum. Chartinael (talk) 19:44, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

http://www.iranica.com/articles/eastern-iranian-languages In Encyclopaedia Iranica, Online Edition, 2010. "The Modern Eastern Iranian languages are even more numerous and varied. Most of them are classified as North-Eastern: Ossetic; Yaghnobi (which derives from a dialect closely related to Sogdian); the Shughni group (Shughni, Roshani, Khufi, Bartangi, Roshorvi, Sarikoli), with which Yaz-1ghulami (Sokolova 1967) and the now extinct Wanji (J. Payne in Schmitt, p. 420) are closely linked; Ishkashmi, Sanglichi, and Zebaki; Wakhi; Munji and Yidgha; and Pashto." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scythian Saka (talk • contribs) 17:49, 20 June 2011 (UTC)